


The Price

by LyraNgalia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mild Language, Minor Character Death, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-07
Updated: 2012-12-07
Packaged: 2017-11-20 12:45:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraNgalia/pseuds/LyraNgalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Irene Adler didn't die on Christmas in London. So whose body was it on the slab in St. Bart's?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Price

 

> _The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it_.  
>  \- Henry Thoreau

  
` Mantlepiece.`  
  
Irene stared at the single word on the phone for a moment. Of all the times to hesitate about sending a text, she knew that this was the least useful. That her cameraphone, her life, was already out of her hands, on the mantlepiece of 221B Baker Street. There was even a chance, a small chance, that it had already been found.  
  
“Kate, bring the car around please,” she called, setting the phone aside for the moment.  
  
The clack of heels on wood preceded Kate’s answer. “Of course, Miss Adler. Anywhere in particular?”  
  
Irene picked up her phone again and slipped it into her purse, the text still unsent. “Yes, we need to meet a friend.”

*****

  
  
  
Comfortably seated in the back of the car, Irene stared out the window as Kate guided to car towards Battersea. Every so often, she glanced back towards her assistant, the woman’s newly brunette locks glossy in the cold winter light.  
  
It hadn’t taken very much to suggest the change. An offhand comment here, a mention there. Kate was as eager to please as any of her clients, under the right circumstances, and Irene always did know the right circumstances under which to press her.  
  
“Shall I stay with the car?” Kate asked, glancing into the rearview mirror at Irene as she slowed the car outside the Battersea Power Station. Without even meeting the woman’s eye, Irene knew what she expected the answer to be. She expected this to be another assignation, another liaison to which she’ll remain silently aware but unobtrusive.  
  
Her voice breaks through Irene’s musing and Irene shakes her head. “No, Kate. I’ll need you to come with me, if you don’t mind.” There was no room in her tone for Kate to mind, but the other woman didn’t notice, simply accepted.

*****

  
  
  
Moriarty’s boys were already waiting when she and Kate stepped into the cavernous, abandoned interior. Three of them, one smartly dressed with a thin, razor sharp set to his jaw. The other two ill-fitting in their suits.  
  
“Miss Adler,” the sharp-jawed one said, and she recognized his voice from conversations she’d had with Jim Moriarty. The voice that hovered in the background. “I believe you know what this is about.”  
  
She nodded calmly and gestured to Kate, who stood to her side, the set of her spine almost hiding the nervousness with which she stood. “I do. Kate, if you’ll wait with the other gentlemen while we talk business?”  
  
Again, there was no denying Irene Adler’s command. Kate glanced with some trepidation at the two men in ill-fitting suits then stepped away from Irene. “Of course, Miss Adler.”  
  
The man who had spoken broke away from the other two, who advanced on Kate with silent malevolence. Irene’s expression was a cold, blank mask as she watched them. Three steps, a hesitation, and Kate turned back toward Irene. By then it was too late. The hulking idiot on the left had grabbed her by the arm, and the one on her right gave Kate a vicious punch to the stomach, driving the woman to her knees. Her assistant gasped, the airless grasping sound of one surprised and desperately trying to draw breath.  
  
“She’ll need to be found away from here,” Irene Adler said calmly to the man who wore his well-tailored suit like a second skin. Moriarty’s man. The other two were hired thugs. She didn’t bother looking at the man, instead watching the two thugs as they drove their boots into Kate’s side, into her face, as the woman tried desperately to curl in on herself. “And I expect your men know to take care of the face.”  
  
“I don’t give you instructions on how to conduct your business, Miss Adler. I’d expect the same courtesy,” the man answered. His accent was upper-class, but a little too precise. The first bit of discomfort she’d observed in him. Used to coarser words, perhaps, or maybe more casual ones. Interesting.  
  
Irene smiled at that, not taking her eyes away from the violence in front of her. She saw livid bruises already blossoming over Kate’s body, the trickle of blood from her nose. Her assistant continued trying to pull away from the two men and their relentless beating, but she was slowing, sobbing, pleading as she did. She watched until Kate eventually went unnaturally still, the only sound left in the cavernous space the dull sound of impact, of the two thug’s fists and boots against yielding, complacent flesh and bone.  
  
“This bitch ain’t ever getting up again,” one of the two thugs said with one last kick to Kate’s abdomen for good measure.  
  
The man standing next to her nodded, and turned to Irene with a sardonic smile. He offered her a handshake, “It was a pleasure working with you, Miss Adler.”  
  
Irene didn’t take his hand and only gave him a curt nod in response. “Tell Jim I’ll be in touch.”  
  
She didn’t wait for a response, and didn’t get one. The man in question was already instructing the two hired thugs to move the body. She turned away from them, knowing it was a dangerous proposition to turn her back on anyone associated with Jim Moriarty, but the balance was in her favour for the moment, and she took advantage of it.  
  
Without another word, Irene Adler walked out of Battersea Power Station alone, leaving behind a beaten, dead body with her measurements. As she did, she reached into her bag and pulled out her phone.  
  
`Mantlepiece.`  
  
She hit send.


End file.
